Highlights

Offthesky“Through The Lines”

It’s the year 2013. Sounds weird, right? Whether you say “two-thousand-thirteen” or “twenty-thirteen,” it just doesn’t roll off the tongue like “2012.” Maybe this happens every year, but to me, 2013 doesn’t sound good.

But you know what does sound good? New music from Offthesky, released by the Paris-based SEM label. Offthesky is Denver’s experimentalist Jason Corder, and he creates some of the most lush and intriguing ambient music out there. Making Offthesky’s transcendental soundscapes even more breathtaking this time around are the visuals provided by Misha Shyukin in the video for the title track off the new release, Through The Lines: we glide over wind-blown animal hair and soar through majestic monotone valleys, while unnerving yet unimposing white lines fade in and out, creating spider legs, triangles, and bridges between floating white orbs. The combination of the dramatic tones and stark imagery is seriously beautiful; I got goosebumps the first time I watched it.

By the way, the video features a somewhat abridged version of the piece, but you can hear the entire album here.

Biosexual [EP]

After months of frothing at the mouth and countless visits to my therapist, Biosexual saved me by finally releasing an EP with three whole new songs alongside the incredible yogacore masterstroke “Sleigher,” a track that debuted on band member Michael RJ Saalman’s SoundCloud page about a year ago. Today, we can stream the debut EP from the trio, which includes Alak’s Jocelyn Noir and Zac Nelson (mad genius behind Charbroile, a sadly overlooked 2012 long player).

Biosexual sports crunchy’n’crispy electronics, spacious arrangements, confident melodies, weirdo syncopation, and an undeniable (and super tasty) 80s vibe. I’d say these tracks glow like neon, but this seems even nobler than that gas (Xenon or something?). Rumors now have these songs appearing on a full-length from Debacle Records this summer. Even if all the details aren’t entirely clear yet, several things are for certain, so let’s go over the facts:

01. Biosexual is an amazing band name.
02. There’s a song by this band called “Naked & Feeling It.”
03. This EP exists, and it is fucking great.

Uranium Enrichment Program for Peace and Prosperity in 2013: The Nuclear Fusion of Date Defined Music

This mix is about fusion. It represents the splicing of two years in music by revolting against deadlines and cutoffs determined by whatever date a particular record was distributed and how it is consequentially responded to. This mix is about bringing together a cacophony of styles, compositions, and ideas, allowing them to ferment through sidestepping the significance of a single digit that marks the end of one chapter and opens up another. This mix is the confinement of smoldering plasma, the merging together of substance used to create something entirely harmonious, without a smidgen of unchecked aggression on the part of its deviser, honestly — I give you my word.

The process begins with some voluptuous exploits by james matthews, where loose-fitting R&B rough cuts mutate into part of an SLF bookend, melting a gorgeous pop flurry from Toro Y Moi — whose new albumAnything in Return is due out January 22 — into a selection of SUSAN BALMAR’s rickety spliced beat distortions. Innercity’s A Lion’s Baptism went largely unnoticed via Further Records’ virtual distribution channel in October 2012, though physical copies have been pegged for a mid-January re-release this year. The haphazard knee-jerk whirring and seductive glitch audacity of “there with the boxer…” makes for an irresistible segue into the panoply of ambient and experimental tones that come next.

Persuasive Barrier by Three Legged Race got an early December release and has unfortunately received very little coverage. “Locked Eyes” could even work as the soundtrack to a nuclear physicist going about his daily routine, developing a new system in a lab or transporting sensitive material from one environment to the next; it also makes for an appropriate platform for launching into some stunning field sample treatment with Nite Light and a glistening sonic wave of buoyancy from Heathered Pearls, both of whom dropped equally sensationalalbums a few weeks back.

The final triad of tracks constitute a distinct selection of what 2013 has in store while maintaining a curious bond with the months that came before it: all three artists released material in 2012, with LPs and EPs also due in the not-too-distant future. Grouper’s bleak and heady The Man Who Died In His Boat is tipped to hit the shelves soon, as is Prayer for the Unborn, the second release to come from Chelsea Wolfe in wildly rapid succession.

I decided to sign off with an artist who laid down two astonishing records last year. Arrington de Dionyso’s Malaikat dan Singa have physical editions of Open the Crown slated for April 20 on K, and the convoluted shakedown of “I Feel the Quickening,” with its Safe as Milk meets Funhouse swagger, seems like the perfect fusion fuel to let the preceding tracks simmer in, melding and permeating with nothing but the most peaceful and cordial intentions.

Elephant Shoes Volume 004

Toronto hip-hop producer is back with the fourth installment of his Elephant Shoes series of instrumental mixtapes. Volume 004 contains more of the soul-indebted, mid-tempo production dviousmindz’s become known for, with an emphasis on crisp drum beats and modest piano samples. There are strong undercurrents of jazz and lounge throughout, but none of the synth-laden drama that usually distracts from such an approach. Toronto seems to be coming into its own as the new capitol for hip-hop-production, and even though dviousmindz may not be as well-known as his more bombastic peers — 40, Boi-1da, T-minus — he deserves a seat at the pantheon. These beats are understated, but they’re sewn together with an enviable effortlessness.

i S P I R I Tメディア「2 X 1 3 」

While last year’s “TOKYO_DAYS” and “真夜中のJAZZ滑らかな心” hinted at more exploratory realms for “vaporwave” — perhaps what one might call a “progression” of sorts — coolmemoryz’ debut album, i S P I R I Tメディア「2 X 1 3 」, makes it harder to tell where you’re being taken, if anywhere at all. Rather than overtly thrusting the listener into some sort of transcendental mindfuck full of sonic detours and unprecedented noise blasts, i S P I R I Tメディア「2 X 1 3 」 confounds with 20 extremely short sample-based tracks with abrupt cutoffs/fades and awkward transitions, mirroring in part the disconnection and excess of modern-day living/simulating. At times, the effects employed are subtle, almost sublime (“s ス p プ i ラ r イ i ト t”); at others, they are downright violent (“H。D。ラヴァー”).

But while coolmemoryz (who played #spf420fest 2.0 last night [wow]) may be manufacturing pseudo-anachronistic sounds that are uncomfortable in a twitchy, unpredictable fashion, the end result sounds eerily compressed, parenthetical, and in control. Download the album and/or stream below.

Dream Recovery

And you notice at the moment your mother’s Trippin’N’Rhythm-produced CD begins skipping in the car that she’s the coolest internet bitch off the grid. She is singing along with the same repetitive lyric, “One you love, one you love, one you love,” and occasionally starts the next verse, but mumbles back to “you love.” Her car phone rings and you’re all, holy shit, mom, do they still have companies servicing car phone communic–… “Yes, I told them next week,” she yawns into the phone and hangs up. Now the music has become a permanent auto moan, swirling the car’s interior, while NO SURPRISE: your life is totally on a thread as your mom drives in two lanes at 85 on the BQE. When Steven Halpern begins skittling out her stock Bose car speakers, you ask to be dropped off immediately and anywhere so you can call jDean, crying about the meaning of “inevitability.”